Dodge Challenger Concept Car - '08 Hemi Super Stock

1/23After its smash debut on the floor at SEMA in Vegas, Hot Rod's editors took the Challenger concept car out to the edge of town and put the whip to it. No quarter asked, none given. The red, white, and blue panel graphics, echoing the look of all those great Mopar Super Stock and Pro Stock racers of the '60s and '70s, were drawn up by Chrysler's SkunkWerks performance design team led by Ralph Gilles. Also note the '70 T/A-style deck spoiler

This is special. When this project was conceived, there was only one running '08 Dodge Challenger prototype in the whole world. And as you can guess, it has been pretty busy doing the car-show scene and hauling journalists around. Mopar Performance Parts wanted a Challenger, too. A smash hit when it was introduced on the floor of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last winter, the Challenger was the perfect vehicle to showcase Mopar's new 392 Hemi crate engines and to fly the flag for Chrysler performance at the SEMA show in Las Vegas. The Mopar people just couldn't wait until 2008 like the rest of us will have to, so they built another new Challenger, from scratch, and Hot Rod was there to look in on the construction.

Chrysler's SkunkWerks team, a loose-knit group made up of employees from various departments and led by Vice President of Design Ralph Gilles, began by working up special paint and style treatments for the project. "There is so much creativity in this team," Gilles said. "A lot of these guys are hot rodders by nature. They bring, in some cases, 30 years of hot-rod experience to the project." One early rendering, a Pro Streeter done up in bright silver and flat black, soon evolved into an all-out tribute to Chrysler's early Super Stock and Pro Stock racers. Slicks, wheelie bars, and a big fat hoodscoop testified that the Challenger meant business, while red, white, and blue panel graphics evoked the famous Dick Landy, Ramchargers, and Color Me Gone Mopar Hemis of the '60s. The Dodge Challenger Super Stock Concept had taken form, and it was a form every hot rodder could recognize. Suddenly, it's 1970 going on 2008.

Using digital code generated by the Chrysler design studios, Metalcrafters of Fountain Valley, California, constructed a duplicate prototype Challenger body in fiberglass and CFRP (carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic). But in this stage, it was a bare shell, an exoskeleton, rather like a Funny Car body or a plastic kit model. To turn the shell into a real car, the crew at Vehicle Build Shop Services and the Experimental Metal Shop at the Chrysler Technical Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan, went to work.

2/23Vehicle Build Shop Services at the Chrysler Technical Center engineered and fabricated the six-point rollcage. Harnesses are by Simpson, while the seats are Dodge police car with snazzy custom covers by Katzkin. A Turbo Action Cheetah shifter bosses the TorqueFlite.

They kicked off the job by pulling a brand-new, perfectly good Inferno Red Dodge Magnum 6.1L SRT8 out of inventory and then-oh, the horror-hacking it to pieces for its cowl and floorpan. The method seems wasteful, but actually it was far cheaper and quicker than tracking down all the hundreds of required components individually in the DCX global parts system. With 4 inches sectioned from the rear passenger floor to shorten the wheelbase from 120 inches to 116, the former Magnum wagon's unibody became the platform for the new Challenger.

The doors, hood, decklid surround rings, and interior panels all had to be hand-fabricated in 19-gauge steel and then bonded to the outer shell to make the Challenger look and function like a real production car. The prototype shop crew, all of them proud UAW skilled tradesmen, also made all the necessary tooling and then constructed the grille, dash, and interior panels, along with the molded front and rear lamp assemblies and "glass" (it's actually Lexan). To round out the neo-retro-futuristic approach to custom-car construction, computer-aided design (CAD) was used to create a six-point, 1.5-inch mild steel rollcage and to devise mounting boxes in the late-model floorpan to replace the IRS with a pair of good ol' Mopar Super Stock leaf springs and a Dana 60 rear axle. Now that's New Old School.

6/23Metalcrafters in California molded the bare body for the Challenger in fiberglass and carbon fiber, but the Chrysler Technical Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan, was tasked with turning the shell into a complete car. That's build supervisor George Wiegand standing at the left rear fender. "You always hear about the outside shops that do this kind of work," Wiegand said. "Mopar and the SkunkWerks team are proving we can do the same work in-house."

After body finishing and the aforementioned red, white, and blue paint, the roller was sent to Mike Pustelny Race Cars in Almont, Michigan, up in the tall sticks north of Detroit. There, the veteran Super Stock racer and chassis builder performed all the plumbing, wiring, and assembly. Mark Williams axles and Mopar 4.88s and a Sure Grip went into the Dana 60, while the stock Magnum front struts were converted to adjustable coilovers using hardware from QA1. Pustelny also installed Mark Williams disc brakes all around and American Racing Pro Series wheels with bead-lock rims on the rear. The bucket seats are Dodge cop-car units with custom-embroidered covers by Katzkin. Summit Racing Equipment, which carries the full Mopar Performance Parts line in its catalog, expedited the build process with regular shipments of big boxes of stuff, including a full complement of Mopar gauges and Simpson safety equipment.

Of course, the centerpiece of the Challenger Super Stock Concept-what the entire project is all about, really-is Mopar's new 392 Hemi crate engine. With a 4.055-inch bore and 3.795-inch stroke, the 392 begins as a stroker version of the 6.1L V-8 used in the SRT8. The heads are CNC-ported aluminum dual-plug castings, while the cam is a hydraulic roller with advertised duration of 279/285 degrees and 0.584/ 0.552-inch lift. With sequential fuel injection, this 392 (PN P5253605) is rated at 525 hp and 510 lb-ft of torque. There are two other versions offered: a single-carb 540hp model (P5153604) and a long-block-only (P5153603). For this car, the 392 was mated to a 904 TorqueFlite with an electronic valvebody, dialed in by legendary Hemi racer and retired Chrysler engineer, Ron Mancini.

There is a second, more serious purpose behind the Mopar Challenger. The car was also built as a testbed to validate various drivetrain combinations and to serve as proof of concept for a purpose-built, limited-production factory Super Stock racer in the mold of the '68 Dodge Dart and Plymouth Barracuda Hemi lightweight cars. The car and concept have been shopped around to several drag-racing sanctioning bodies, and while it's too early for any announcements just yet, "I can tell you the interest is definitely there," said Jon Clark of Mopar Performance Parts. "With all the equity and heritage of the 1968 Hemi cars, we would be fools not to stand on their shoulders with this car." If the plan flies, you could see a limited run of factory-homologated Super Stock Challengers with Hemi crate engines coming soon to a dragstrip near you.

The Challenger made a big splash in Vegas in its public debut at SEMA. Right after the show, it was trailered (show car, no VIN, can't be street-driven, fuhgetaboutit) out to the edge of town where editors Kinnan and Freiburger gave it a thorough thrashing . . . er, testing. The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was booked up, so they couldn't obtain any quarter-mile results, but they were able to drive the Challenger around, run it up through the gears a few times, and do several big, smoky burnouts. And then Freiburger broke the nearly priceless, handbuilt, factory concept car. Kinnan said it was probably nothing serious

InspirationsSome of you may be too young or too bong-addled to recall the drag cars of the early '70s that inspired the stance and graphic element on the new '08 Mopar Super Stocker. The red, white, and blue treatment immediately recalls the string of Sox & Martin cars of the day, but all of those were Plymouths. The flag-waving treatment on Dodges was found on Rod Shop cars and on Dick Landy's and Larry Huff's '72 Pro Stockers, but the general retro vibe is exhibited on all these '70-'72 Challengers that we dug up in the HOT ROD archives. -David Freiburger HRM